Tank Squad News

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 34th Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last two weeks.

[h3]Canisters[/h3]
Canisters and fuel cans have been used to store liquids such as fuel, oil, or water.
We’ve made 20l canisters for water and fuel.

Kraftstoff - fuel.
Wasser - water.

Those canisters have a white cross painted on them to avoid confusion. Pouring water into a tank engine or a soldier taking a sip of fuel thinking its water is rather unpleasant.



Oil has been stored in smaller triangular cans which came in 10l, 15l, and 20l sizes. Tiger’s engine needed up to 26l of oil. We’ve decided to use in game only 10l cans.



[h3]Engine hoist[/h3]
Engine hoist will be used in Tank Squad to repair the tank’s engine separately.



[h3]QA Testing[/h3]
We're hard at work as QA here. Our recent focus has been on the multiplayer features to make sure that everything is ironed out and ready for you when the game is finally available. We worked to make sure synchronization works properly and have recently closed more than 50 issues. As one example, we thoroughly tested the task system to ensure that players could properly be assigned tasks by the game host. We're happy with the progress being made.
We saw that on the Repair scene walking between different points of interest was a bit annoying since the distance between them was really long.
With the developers, we were able to optimize many things regarding this, and now walking between various places feels much smoother.
We've expanded our numbers in the QA department so you can rest assured we're serious about this. In just one month, we quadrupled the number of testers in the company, and having these new eyes is clearly helping the development.
There are some examples of bugs that we have encountered, and we are working at:



[h3]Optimization[/h3]
We’ve done a performance test and analysis of the repair station scene. We’ve found some bottlenecks that were a great burden to the game’s performance:

• Textures resolution was too high
  
• Vehicles that were not interactive were too complex
  
• Vegetation had to polygons
  
• There were some unnecessary objects and game components that were not used
  

We’ve optimized those and a result we have:

• Lowered amount of batches from 10 000 to 4 500.
  
• Lowered the number of triangles from 100 million to 17 million.
  
• Gained an additional 15 FPS.
  
• Lowered RAM use from 21GB to 12GB.
  

That has been one of the stages of optimization. Now we are going to test and optimize performance once a week to make sure the game runs smoothly.

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 33rd Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last two weeks.

[h3]Release date postponed[/h3]
As we have reported before in comments on the Steam forum or discord conversations, we have to postpone the release date to Q4 2023. We are still working on the game as you can see in the devstatuses, but adding all the content we want takes more time than we anticipated when we started this project. We apologize for this delay. We hope that by doing so, we will be able to bring you the high quality game you have been waiting for so much.

[h3]Soviet “Teplushka” railway wagon[/h3]


[h3]Turret Stands and ladders[/h3]


[h3]Extinguisher[/h3]


[h3]New testers[/h3]
This month two new QA testers, Jakub and Marcin, have joined DeGenerals to help us with the testing of the game and its features. Their responsibilities consist of explorative tests where they just play the game and notify us about bugs they have found, standardized tests where they test a specific aspect of the game with a checklist, for example, they test each character animation for each character; and gameplay tests where they judge whether the game is fun enough. QA department in our studio has got currently 4 people. They are responsible for the final quality of the game.

[h3]Tank parts assemble and dissemble[/h3]
While holding a specific item (in this case - Notepad) Player will switch to Repair Mode which let him add or remove smaller vehicle parts. There are two available modes at the moment - “Dismount” and “Mount”. In “Mount” mode, we can highlight parts we want to remove just by looking at them. After switching to “Dismount” mode, all available empty slots for parts will be highlighted, looking at such a slot lets the player see if he can put a vehicle part in its place or if it’s blocked by other slots. This is the third way for modifying our vehicles. Now some parts need to use the crane, some can be carried around by the player character and some can be dismounted/mounted this way.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Visit at tank museum[/h3]


We are delighted to inform you that we have started cooperation with the Museum of Military Technology Gryf (PL: Muzeum Techniki Wojskowej "GRYF")!

Thanks to their rich collection of vehicles, exhibits, and documentation, we will be able to provide you with even more detailed models of tanks, weapons and other equipment.

We encourage you to visit their website and have a tour in person, just like we did or follow latest news from here!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 32nd Development Status. Check out our work from last three weeks

[h3]Anhanger maschinensats sd.ah.24[/h3]
The Sd. Ah. 24 Maschinensatz was used to transport the heavy machine set A with a power of 220/380 V, 12 KW, 25 ampere. Usually, the Sd. Ah. 24 was used by radio and maintenance units.



[h3]Characters on the repair scene[/h3]
We’ve created some idle animations for NPC characters in the repair station. It adds some life and makes the scene more interesting.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]UI Markers[/h3]
To help the player better and faster prepare for the next battle, we have designed a system of so-called Repair Tasks, which will include the repair/replacement/replenishment of tank resources, troops, and other bonus items. Each task will have a hint or several hints and landmarks of the places where this task must be completed. For example, the player has the task of finding out information about the upcoming battle, so at the moment in the game, he will have HQ indicated when talking with which he will find out all the necessary information.



[h3]UI Compass[/h3]
As you can see, some tasks will consist of several tasks, and to improve the orientation in the area when searching for the location of these tasks, we have made a special compass that the player can see at the top of the screen. Here, in turn, special hints will be displayed that make up a holistic task, which was described earlier.



[h3]Water and mud VFX[/h3]
We present three new dedicated particle effects. They are activated during the following actions: when the tank enters muddy water, when is inside and finally, when leaves the water surface. Particles are simulated from two-dimensional billboards, which were originally generated in software called Houdini and then exported as a texture atlas.
Also, the following video shows new mud materials, based on a technique called flow mapping. As the name suggests, new materials use shaders with supports for flow maps. These textures contain vector data for local distortions of UV coordinates, which allows for the creation of more realistic fluid surface animations.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 31st Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last three weeks.

Tank Crew
We’ve added a tank crew into a tank. That means that we are programming different states for the tank, for example, if the gunner is dead, the tank is unable to shoot, if the reloader is injured, it takes more time to reload, etc.
The tank crews will have dedicated animations and players will be able to see their reactions to specific events such as the Tank being hit, reload, shot from the main gun, etc.
We have added basic animations for now, and we will be adding more animations for each crew member during production


Player’s decisions
In the demo version of the game that we plan to release (and then in the final version), players will be able to take a series of decisions that are going to impact the course of the game. At the beginning of the game, at the repair station, players will receive information about the next mission. The information will consist of what kind of enemy units they can expect in what proportions if the area is for close distance or long distance combat if they can expect mines, obstacles, bridges, etc. Also, each mission is going to have different scenarios. You will be able to choose if you want to attack from the left/right flank or center. Each scenario is going to have different characteristics. Players can call for recon to receive additional information, but calling a recon will cost some resources.
Using those information players will have to take a decision on which tanks are they going to use (light, medium, heavy), what kind of infantry are they going to take with themselves, and if they are going to need artillery support or maybe airplane support, etc.
We have to balance each player’s decision in such a way, that if they take wrong decisions, the game will teach them how to make better decisions to win a mission without making it too difficult to learn or without taking too much time. On another side, when players take optimal decisions, we want to reward them for it, but at the same time, we do not want to make the game as a result of their decisions too easy, as it can become boring after some time. We all expect a challenge that is not too easy nor too difficult. The challenging part for us, developers, is that different players are going to play our game.

Soviet anti-tank mine TM-35
TM-35 - A small, rectangular Soviet anti-tank mine, widely utilized during WW2. Comprised of a metal case, carrying handle, and a raised pressure plate in the center. The mine's load was 200g blocks of TNT and could be packed up to 2.8kg of those. Despite being called effective, it did not have the punch required to cripple German armored vehicles sufficiently.


Levels junction
To make the work of our graphic designers and level designers easier, we needed to abandon one large battle scene approach. So to keep battles scale big, we developed a system that allows to easily save a collection of sublevels. Such a collection, in part or in whole, can be loaded in the editor or during the game. It will also make it easier for us to optimize the game. So right now we have game logic, terrain with props, lighting separated in sublevels, which we join together when game is loading.

Panzerfaust animations
Animation set for soldiers with the Mauser Kar98k rifle and panzerfaust as an additional weapon, as we said in the previous stage of development, units with anti-tank weapons will be visible to players.
[previewyoutube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0mHMzHxkBM&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=DeGenerals[/previewyoutube]

New team members
Recently two new junior 3D artists have joined our team to help us with creating 3D assets. Their tasks will consist mostly of creating content for the environment of the game but also in creating some weapons and vehicles. TM-35 mine and power set models that you have seen above were made by those junior artists.

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 30th Development Status. You can see what we have been working on for… yeah. It's been a while, right?

For a long time, we managed to publish development statuses regularly. Unfortunately, by focusing on testing, optimization, and documentation, we didn't had anything interesting to show you and we preferred to avoid uninteresting publications.
However, after this break, we are back and we hope that you missed us as much as we missed you!

Vertical Slice

We’ve been focusing the most on transitions between repair and battle levels. When a player launches the game, the first thing they see is the main menu. They start a new game, first, they are going to select a campaign and create a room so other players can join them. Once they start the game, they begin at the repair station, where players spawn the vehicles they want to use, prepare them for battle, load ammo and fuel, customize them, select a strategy for battle, manage resources and choose some support units. Then during the battle, players' tanks will receive some damage, they will spend resources, gain new resources, lose some AI support, etc. After the battle, players depending on if they have won or lost the battle, will go back to the previous repair station or move to the next one. Also, they will be able to restart a battle. All the information between players and levels has to be transitioned and synchronized.

Panzerfaust animations

A series of animations for soldiers with Panzerfaust and Mauser Kar98k Carbine. In gameplay anti-tank grenade launchers like Panzerfaust will be visible on units if they are equipped with them to inform the player that such unit is a bigger threat than the rest of the soldiers, of course in case of Panzerfaust it will be thrown away after use.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Repair Scene

We are making a new design for the repair scene. It includes:

• Headquarters
  
• Quartermaster
  
• Human resources
  
• Field hospital
  
• Infantry
  
• Logistics/sappers
  
• Scouts
  
• Repair Stations
  
• Player spawner/despawner
  
• Vehicle parking
  
• Graveyard
  
• Spare parts
  
• Rearm station
  
• Refuel station
  
• Paint shop
  
• Bergepanther

On the repair scene, we’ve been developing an interaction system with NPC. It required some changes in the configuration of characters. Players can approach NPCs and interact with them, which will be required to gain or convert resources, gain or sell vehicles, set a strategy for a mission, etc.

Game economy

We’ve begun to work on the game economy. Here are some basic questions that we have to answer:

• How many resources and vehicles player will gain with each mission?
  
• How many resources will we drain from players in each mission?
  
• How expensive are going to be parts and vehicles?
  
• How much fuel will the vehicle consume in each mission?
  
• How much power will the player gain during the progression of the game?
  
• How quickly vehicle parts will need maintenance?
  
• How expensive is going to be a new vehicle?
  
• How much AI support will the players be able to take with them to each mission?
  

The difficulty in designing and balancing the game economy in Tank Squad is in the fact that we have to balance repairing vehicles, balance battles and do all the balancing for 4 players in multiplayer simultaneously. So we are going to do a lot of iterations and testing to find an optimal solution. Sometimes a small change in the game economy can decide if the game is going to be too easy, too difficult, or impossible to finish in certain circumstances. We are going to use mathematical calculations and statistics in developing game economy but we won’t rely only on that. We are going to play the game over and over again and take some intuitive decisions as well.

Economy structure (code)
We’ve written code for economy structure. It contains:

• Resources pool
  
• Resources container
  - Static
  - Mobile
  
• Resources migration
  
• Resources converter
  
• Resources inventory
  
• Pricing
  
• Resources source
  
• Resources drain
  

The game will feature a variety of gameplay when working with resources. For example, two separate mechanics were developed for using a liquid type of resource (fuel and oil) and for a solid type of resource (for example, ammunition for a tank). Thus, we want to bring the player as close to reality as possible and add interest even to such details. We have also made progress in interacting with such objects. For example, now the player can refuel his tank using a canister, which first must be filled at a special point on the repair station map. We’ve written a code for moving a resource from one place to another using a special container (in that case, a canister).

Environment: Railroad

As you’ve probably seen in previous development statuses, we are working on the Prokhorovka map. It contains a railroad and train station. So we’ve been working on that too. Here is a screenshot of new 3D models for that specific map.


Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals